Hindsight and Foresight: Yankees Review August 6th to August 19th

Free at last! My conference is over and while I haven't been able to catch the Yankees of late, they are still the hottest team in baseball. We are now seeing an exciting AL East race where a little over a month ago no such thing existed. But it ain't over til it's over or at least until the fat lady sings and we still have seven weeks of baseball left. In regards to Doug's comments about Boston writers saying the Yankees were over back in May and June, he doesn't need to look any further than me who had serious doubts about the Yankees this year. But for the record, I never wrote them off saying at the All-Star break:

"Rather than trying to win the AL East this year, the Yankees need to set their sights on climbing up in the Wild Card standings if they want to push for the playoffs"

but also stated

"I'm not downplaying the possibility that the Yankees could come back and make the World Series this year. It's possible, but quite unlikely. I figured a season like this would happen one year or another where the Yankees are a team of superstars, many past their prime or entering the downturn in their careers, and suddenly a lot of them have off years, get injured, etc and it all shows in their record."

I'm definetely not going to take back what I said about my doubts. All that was going wrong can still come back and hurt their chances down the stretch. So while Boston writers and some fans wrote the Yankees off early on, we certainly can't write them into the playoffs just yet, because it's going to be very close and they have some tough teams ahead. That is not doubt talking, that is just reality.

Hindsight: August 6th to August 12th

The last time we saw A-Rod getting into it with someone was back in 2004 with V-Tek. Everyone knew that Toronto was going to bean A-Rod and A-Rod probably knew how he was going to react. Unfortunately the first throw at A-Rod missed him and went behind him, so they drilled him the next day instead. Bean wars are a part of the game, I don't condone them, but it's one of the few choices teams have to retaliate. Of course they cost players and managers games when they go too far, so Clemens will sit for five and Torre sat his one game. But the Yankees rolled through Toronto, though Wang and Co. got shelled on Wednesday and went into Cleveland where the Indians played poorly. Hughes pitched a brilliant game as did Mussina. Cleveland had a rally going late on Sunday, but fell short to Rivera who struggled early coming in but then struck out Cabrera and Sizemore. The nice addition to the Yankes this week was Joba Chamberlain who's really in a groove.

Weekly Stats

W-L: 5-1
RS/RA: 40/27
Offensive Numbers (BA/OBP/SLG): .338/.389/.572
Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 3.90/1.30/8.74/.260/.386

Who's Hot: Melky Cabrera, who's got a 17 game hitting streak and hit .440 this week.
Who's Not: Chien Ming Wang pitched his worst outting ever (I believe), just 2 2/3 IP and 8ERs.
My Yankee of the Week: Joba Chamberlain has been lights out. It was only four innings, but he struck out six in those innings with some heat and nice offspeed stuff. Fun stuff to watch!

Foresight: August 13th to August 19th
The Yankees start a homestand with three against the O's and then three against Detroit. Sheff will return to the Bronx on Friday and I'll be at the game Saturday to see how the reaction is to him. The Detroit series will also have the two leading candidates for MVP--A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez--go up against each other. So far this year the Yankees are 23-7 against the AL Central division (KC helped) and Detroit has been around .500 since the All-Star break, so they could make some upward movement in the standings (AL East and Wild Card). Going beyond the 19th though the Yankees face some tough teams through the end of August including the Angels and Red Sox. They should be glad for their hot start because they have the upperhand in the AL right now.